Category: King County

King County

King County Assessor Wilson Misused County Resources Amid Stalking and Harassment Allegations: Report

By Erica C. Barnett

King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson, who faced charges last year for allegedly stalking and harassing his ex-fiancée, communications consultant Lee Keller, committed multiple violations of King County’s ethics code, the county ombuds office concluded in a report released today.

The ombuds was investigating a complaint made last year that Wilson used King County resources to stalk, contact, and harass Keller. Keller sought criminal charges against Wilson after he was arrested outside her house while under a restraining order that required him to stay at least 1,000 feet away from her.

The order includes newly disclosed information about Wilson’s behavior as county assessor, and concludes that he violated the county’s ethics code in at least four distinct ways, and violated a county rule about the appropriate use of county IT resources.

Negotiating a lease

In a 2024 letter of interest sent on his King County letterhead, which includes the information that the assessor determines property values, Wilson wrote, “I’m John Wilson, the King County Assessor. I’ve been elected countywide to this office three times since 2015. … As King County Assessor, I direct a team of highly professional residential and commercial appraisers who cover all of King County. I know from traveling the county how rare it is to find a residential gem like your property, for rent.”

The ombuds found that by using his position to help secure a lease, Wilson violated an ethics code provision against using public resources for personal gain. “Not only did Assessor Wilson make clear that he and/or his office sets property values, and that he is the Assessor, but in the letter to the Property Manager and property owner, Assessor Wilson included an embedded link that led directly to the official King County Assessor’s website while describing what a ‘residential gem’ the property is,” the report says.

“The clear implication of the letter as a whole was that Assessor Wilson should receive special consideration due to his position in County government. … There is no legitimate reason for the King County Assessor to be negotiating for personal residential property and lease terms from their official County email address.”

Violating a protection order

The ombuds found that Wilson used his county email to contact Keller at least eight times over a span of three weeks when she had a restraining order against him, asking her to go to events with him five times and repeatedly sending her information about an audit that required county employees to verify their dependents’ eligibility for King County health care. The ombuds found that these emails violated the protection order, “which is illegal.”

Wilson was ordered to wear an ankle bracelet and stay away from Keller last year while misdeamenor charges against him were pending, but successfully fought the requirement, claiming his doctor had ordered him to soak his legs every day because of a medical condition. While his case was pending, Wilson posted several mocking social media posts from his hot tub, prompting a judge to order him to wear the monitor. Soon after, though, Keller said she no longer wanted to pursue the case—a pattern that had repeated previously in their relationship, according to the extensive court documents for the case.

Sending in the sheriff

Wilson also contacted King County Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall, asking her to go or send someone to Keller’s house to perform a “wellness check” after she refused to talk to him at an event. Wilson’s emails came one day after Keller got a domestic-violence restraining order against him in May 2024. Over several emails sent from his county address over a 12-hour period, Wilson told the sheriff Keller was “distraught and agitated” as well as in a “manic, agitated” state. and said he would call 911 and ask for a wellness check on Keller.

During the email conversation, Cole-Tindall told Wilson “Ms. Keller not wanting to talk to Assessor Wilson was not an indication of risk of self-harm,” the report says, adding that the assessor “switched to his county email address when he wasn’t getting a response.”

Knowing that Keller had a restraining order against him, the report continues, “Assessor Wilson continued using his official King County email to try to force a wellness check on Ms. Keller.” In one email, he “acknowledged the Sheriff was busy with a visit from the President of the United States, and again requested that someone do a wellness check on his former domestic partner,” saying he would otherwise call 911 and have them send someone to Keller’s home.

“As an elected government official of the 13th largest county in the country, Assessor Wilson has power and authority that Ms. Keller doesn’t. The Ombuds Office finds that Assessor Wilson attempted to wield that power under the guise of seeking help for Ms. Keller,” the report says. “We do not conclude that this was a genuine, County-related emergency worthy of an elected official, acting in their official capacity, to reach out to the head of a law enforcement agency to request action.”

Election Damage Control

The report also found that Wilson had used his county email address to set up meetings with campaign supporters, including two of his staffers, communications manager Chris Vance and deputy assessor Al Dams, to do damage control in early summer 2025. (Dams later called on Wilson to resign). Wilson sent the emails to Dams’ and Vance’s personal accounts, indicating that he knew county employees weren’t supposed to do election work using county property.

This was shortly after PubliCola and other media reported on the latest stalking and harassment allegations against Wilson, which came about six months after news broke about a previous domestic violence restraining order Keller had let lapse.

The emails included a document from May 25, 2025 titled “ElectJohnWilson Exec Team—The Options” which set a Zoom meeting “to strategize and discuss media about he and Ms. Keller and the news stories at that time,” according to the report. They also included a draft email with a Word document addressing “the allegations made by Ms. Keller and Assessor Wilson’s commitment to running for King County Executive.,” dated June 2. Wilson stayed in the King County Executive race more than a month longer as demands piled up for him to withdraw from the race and resign.

“Political campaign-related activity on King County technology assets is strictly prohibited,” the report notes.

“Black dildo boy”

Finally, in searching Wilson’s emails, county investigators found two instances where Wilson used sexually explicit language in violation of county policy.

In one instance, his county phone referred to a person on his contacts list as “black dildo boy.” In the other, a “personal, ‘diary-like’ reflection on his relationship” with Keller, titled “Open Letter to John Wilson,” included explicit sexual references to Keller. These two incidents, while not a violation of the county’s ethics code, do violate the county’s policy on acceptable uses of King County resources, the ombuds found.

Wilson did not respond to an email seeking comment. A group of his staff called for his resignation today, according to KING 5.

Wilson has rebuffed every previous effort by elected officials and his own staff to pressure him into resigning, and plans to attend the International Association of Assessing Officers conference in Calgary next month, according to his social media. Wilson’s most recent social media post, about a celebration of life for longtime Seattle journalist Joel Connelly, includes a photo of the back of Keller’s head.

Keller declined to comment on the report.

homelessness, King County, LGBTQ+, Mayor Wilson, Police, Privacy

This Week on PubliCola: August 23, 2026
King County’s uncanny AI “trainer”

KCRHA Layoffs Begin, SPD Chief Files Unfounded Complaint Against Detective, Privacy Advocates vs. Surveillance Cameras and More

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, August 17

Greater Seattle: Junk Fees, Recalling Wilson, and Ron Davis’ Post-Election Fixation

In his latest column, Josh says Katie Wilson is doing what she said she would do—working to make housing more affordable—even though it pisses off people who supported Bruce Harrell, like the North Seattle couple seeking to recall her. And in what turned out to be a very controversial hot take (at least among Ron Davis supporters), Josh calls the former legislative candidate’s 3,000-word newsletter—which spun a conspiracy theory about why the Stranger didn’t endorse him that the Stranger’s union took the trouble to correct—unhinged.

Tuesday, August 18

As KCRHA Begins Layoffs, Union Suggests Cutting Top Executives First

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority is beginning to scale back, as the city and county take over contracts after a damning forensic audit revealed serious financial issues. The initial layoffs reportedly hit some divisions the agency will still need going forward, while protecting top executives. In a blistering letter, the union representing many KCRHA staff said the agency could save more than half a million dollars by eliminating the jobs of CEO Kelly Kinnison and her deputy William Towey.

As Business-Backed Poll Says Most Support Police Surveillance Cameras, Privacy Advocates Raise Security Concerns

A new business-backed poll showed a huge spike in support for police camera surveillance across Seattle—but the questions are worded in such a pro-surveillance way, it’s hard to know how much organic support the poll represents. Meanwhile, privacy advocates who toured SPD’s surveillance HQ said what they learned made them even more concerned that surveillance footage could escape containment and get into the hands of ICE or hackers.

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Thursday, August 20

King County Enlists Uncanny AI Videos for Ethics Training

King County is using what it calls an “innovative tool” to train 4,000 executive branch employees on how to prevent waste, fraud, and misuse of public dollars: A series of short videos in which an uncanny AI avatar recites scripts about various training topics. The county’s IT department produced the videos using a company called Synthesia, which aims its product at small businesses.

Drop in Mayor’s Approval Rating Follows Anti-Wilson Media Frenzy

The Chamber released another poll result this week: Mayor Wilson’s approval rating has dropped to 37 percent. That’s hardly surprising, given that public opinion doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and the media (particularly TV and radio) have spent weeks calling Wilson incompetent, blaming her (and not SPD) for a delay in information after the Bite of Seattle shooting, and relentlessly covering a doomed recall effort against her.

Report: Police Contract Severely Limits CARE Team’s Ability to Do Their Jobs

A report from the city’s Office of Inspector General concluded that the new contract between the city and the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) drastically limits the ability of the CARE team of civilian first responders to respond to crisis calls. But CARE Chief Amy Barden sees some reason for optimism in the most recent numbers, which show that the team is now responding to more calls than in previous years.

Friday, August 21

Interim Police Chief Sayles Filed Complaint Against Hate Crimes Detective for Speaking At Pro-LGBTQ Rally

Interim police chief Andre Sayles filed a complaint against a longtime SPD detective who spoke out against two right-wing initiatives aimed at LGBTQ kids. The detective had permission to speak at the rally, but after hearing complaints from, among others, right-wing podcaster Brandi Kruse, Sayles claimed she refused to follow his orders and lied about what the initiatives would do—either of which would be a fireable offense. Sayles’ complaint was quickly dismissed (an investigator called it an infringement on the detective’s free speech rights), but the incident led the detective to retire rather than return to work after a sabbatical.

Crime, King County, Mayor Wilson, Police, public safety

King County Enlists Uncanny AI Videos for Ethics Training; Drop in Mayor’s Approval Rating Follows Anti-Wilson Media Frenzy

1. King County is using what it calls an “innovative tool” to train 4,000 executive branch employees on how to prevent waste, fraud, and misuse of public dollars: A series of short videos in which an uncanny AI avatar, wearing a tech CEO-style quarter-zip fleece, recites scripts about various training topics in front of shelves filled with leather-bound books.

According to a King County spokesperson, the videos are part of a new training protocol the county instituted “as part of Executive Girmay Zahilay’s Better Government actions,” after an audit found potential fraud, waste, and abuse of funds in youth contracts overseen by the Department of Community and Human Services.

A quick reverse image search found dozens of identical-looking videos produced for a wide range of small companies, from a “dental AI” company to a rare-earth metal dealer to a flower shop.

Usually, the AI speaks with a plummy British accent, but occasionally it speaks in other languages, like German, or in the American accent King County’s IT department chose for the training videos.

The King County spokesperson said the AI videos are based on an anti-fraud training DCHS launched in April, and said the content was generated by humans at DCHS, “in consultation with King County’s Finance and Business Operations Division.”

King County IT put together the videos using a company called Synthesia, which costs the county about $900 a year. According to the spokesperson, the IT department approved the use of the company under the county’s AI policy.

“King County embraces the use of innovative tools, including AI,” the spokesperson said. “The training went through multiple reviews internally to ensure accuracy, the AI-generated presenter has been disclosed to staff, and no prohibited County data was provided to the AI service.”

We think they dost protest a bit too much. Our question was, “Does DCHS believe this kind of AI talking head video is an effective training tool, and if so, why?”

​

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2. The Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce released another batch of poll results on Thursday. (The first poll, done in collaboration with Challenge Seattle and released earlier this week, purported to show overwhelming support for police camera surveillance in Seattle neighborhoods). One poll question found that Mayor Katie Wilson’s approval rating has slipped 20 percentage points, to 37 percent; the other showed broad public support for a long list of potential public safety strategies and interventions.

Local media outlets interpreted the results as bad news for Wilson, which is certainly the case with her approval rating. But it’s worth noting, as my friend and colleague Marcus Harrison Green did on Bluesky, that approval ratings don’t exist in a vacuum: The same media that’s dutifully reporting on the mayor’s drop in support has also spent the last several weeks falling over themselves to blame Wilson for a delayed press conference after a shooting at the Bite of Seattle last month and suggest that she fired former police chief Shon Barnes on a baseless whim. (Marcus, citing his podcast co-host Nora Kenworthy, also pointed out that the backlash is transparently gendered, and I’ll add that it’s also ageist—no one would say Bruce Harrell had no right to fire his department heads or tell them what to do.)

As we’ve noted, Wilson had many pre-existing reasons for letting the police chief go—beyond his embarrassing explosion at a reporter who asked him a question, arguably a fireable offense in itself. And many in the mainstream press have done a disservice to their profession by failing to ask basic questions Barnes’ role in delaying his own department’s press conference while he waited to be briefed from his hotel room in Dallas. The press, as much as any official action or press release, create public opinion, and they’ve been working overtime to make Wilson look feckless, incompetent, and out of bounds.

The responses to the public safety questions, which the Chamber characterized as a sign of  “growing concern among voters about public safety,” are not so much… that, as they are a sign that people continue to support a combination of punishment (arrests and jail) and services (treatment and housing). Although the Seattle Times (which ran the news under the headline “Seattle voters are done waiting on public safety, new poll finds”) was “staggered” by the fact that people like ideas like foot patrols and drug treatment, these concepts generally poll well, as do ideas like banning encampments near schools and in public parks.

None of the coverage I’ve seen added much context to the poll results. Context like: SPD has said it lacks the resources to do regular foot patrols , or the fact that the city already prohibits sleeping in parks. The wording of questions like these is both misleading (suggesting that the mayor could do these things but is refusing) and designed to elicit a positive response. They are, in other words, predictable. But to a mainstream press invested in promoting a narrative of “socialist failure” (Wilson, who’s overseen steady improvement in public safety and increased police hiring, is hardly Leon Trotsky), the results of a business poll are just more evidence the mayor is refusing to give voters what they want.

 

homelessness, human services, King County, Mayor Wilson, Uncategorized

Regional Homelessness Agency “Right-Sizing” Will Largely Restore Pre-KCRHA Status Quo

The announcement, which will send most homeless service contracts back to the city and county, aims to preserve federal funding at risk after a damning forensic audit and changes in funding priorities under Trump.

By Erica C. Barnett

King County Executive Girmay Zahilay and Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced Wednesday that they will transfer the region’s homelessness contracts back to the city and county, respectively, effectively ending the King County Regional Homelessness Authority as it has existed for the past five years.

Most of the region’s homeless service contracts, totaling around $160 million, will transition back to the city and county, where they used to live, by January 1, 2027, with some more complex contracts remaining at KCHRA on at least a temporary basis. As previously announced, the city and county will fund a team of consultants, from a company called Turning Point, to correct some of the major financial issues identified in the audit. The total cost, according to officials, will be under $1 million.

The KCRHA will continue to serve as the region’a Continuum of Care, the entity that applies for and administers federal funds, at least for this year. It will also oversee the Homeless Management Information System, a regional database of homeless people and the services they receive, administer the Point in Time Count of the region’s homeless population, and oversee the region’s severe weather shelters.

“It is not being dissolved, it is being strengthened,” Wilson said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

The changes will result in about 20 layoffs at KCRHA right away, officials said, with more to come in the future as the contracts move out. The decision to bring contracts back in-house will also result in some new costs for the city and county, especially while the KCRHA is still providing duplicative staffing, although officials said it’s currently unclear how much and what the impact will be on next year’s city and county budgets.

The KCRHA was recently subject to a damning forensic audit that found the agency had a large and growing deficit and lacked basic accounting standards; since then, the agency has released a “corrective action plan” that the auditors themselves said was  inadequate and failed to address many of their concerns.

The city and county are describing the new proposal as a plan to “stabilize, right size, and reset” the KCRHA.

“This agency was given incredible responsibility without sufficient capacity or authority to really effectively create and drive an overall strategy for addressing the homelessness crisis in our region,” Wilson said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon, “and I think that the audit really reflects this reality—and also, of course, brings to light specific problems that have to be urgently addressed.”

Wilson and Zahilay both said moving all the homelessness contracts back to the city and county does not mean the KCRHA is a “failure” as an agency. “I think the assumption of city and county contracts by the KCRHA was not terribly successful,” Wilson said. “That’s not saying the agency was a failure, but I think that particular part of its function, talking to service providers, that was not a successful function of this work.”

On Wednesday, city and county officials characterized the decision to take back their contracts as a reset that will allow KCRHA to focus on its “true core function” of serving as the Continuum of Care for the region—that is, as the entity that applies for and administers federal contracts.

As PublicCola has reported, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity this year—the first step in a competitive bidding process for federal dollars—that prioritizes transitional housing and high-barrier programs that include mandatory services over permanent supportive housing and harm reduction.

Because most of the region’s current federal funding (around $67 million) is for low-barrier permanent supportive housing, KCRHA was already likely to lose federal funds; the recent chaos at the agency makes that even more likely. (HUD recently froze all federal funding with LA’s homelessness agency over financial issues that are similar to those at KCRHA).

City and county officials suggested today that moving the contracts back to the city and county would make the city competitive again. “Taking our local dollars back to the county and back to the city really will relieve KCRHA of that additional responsibility of administering those dollars to really focus at this point in time on the changes in the Continuum of Care and that core function,” Wilson’s deputy director for operations, Mark Ellerbrook, said.

The KCRHA was established at the end of 2019 to replace the previous, locally atomized homelessness system with a “regional approach to homelessness.” The agency began administering homeless service contracts in 2022, but never got around to accomplishing its primary stated goal—getting every city in King County aligned behind a coordinated approach to homelessness and issuing new contracts to nonprofit providers as part of a coherent “five-year plan.”  Instead, the KCRHA got mired in a series of ideological arguments and policy missteps, including an aborted pandemic era effort called “Partnership for Zero” that was supposed to end unsheltered homelessness downtown.

The city and county, meanwhile, were never willing to let go of control over what the homeless system looked like—whether, for example, the KCRHA should focus primarily on temporary shelter or permanent housing—and the agency ultimately turned into a pass-through entity for contracts chosen and funded by the city and county. With no taxing authority, KCRHA couldn’t direct homelessness policy in any substantive way, taking direction instead from a series of elected officials with differing political priorities.

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PubliCola has reported in recent weeks on the KCRHA’s oddly blithe response to the forensic audit and the mayor and county executive’s response to its corrective action plan. Both agency CEO Kelly Kinnison and William Towey, the KCRHA’s associate director for strategy, have publicly treated the audit findings as little more than a speed bump, and blamed most of the financial and accounting issues on the way the agency’s budget functions (as a reimbursement system, in which the agency pays nonprofit service providers and gets reimbursed afterward) and previous leadership.

On Wednesday, however, Kinnison said, “As it was launched, [KCRHA] is a failed experiment,” she said.

Given that Kinnison and Towey have largely blamed the agency’s problems on decisions made before Kinnison was hired in 2024, I asked if she saw any of the problems that resulted in today’s announcement as her responsibility. “Absolutely, there are always things I would do differently and prioritize differently,” she said. “Being a newcomer to the region, I think”—Kinnison moved here from D.C.—”was more challenging than maybe I even expected it to be.”

Otherwise, Kinnison said, she came in and took charge of a bad situation by hiring administrative staff and getting the agency into financial shape. If she could have done something different, Kinnison said, she would have “been louder” and “more public” about the agency’s financial issues—”I came in when we were not paying providers on time and people were doing payroll on credit cards”—and lack of finance and administrative staffing. “There’s decisions a reasonable person could have made that would have bene different, but this missing money and construction of the back end [financial system] that didn’t  work—that’s an implementation problem.”

Kinnison also reiterated her claim that she had asked the city to initiate a forensic audit into the agency after she arrived and began identifying problems that occurred under her predecessor, Marc Dones. The mayor’s office says that isn’t true, and that the city (under then-mayor Bruce Harrell) and county (under then-executive Dow Constantine) requested the audit. Simon Foster, the former KCRHA deputy CEO, reportedly also raised concerns about the agency’s finances to the city. Foster was laid off by Kinnison last October, as was KCRHA finance director James Rouse, who was not replaced.

City and county officials, as well as as Wilson and Zahilay, were reluctant to say what will happen to the KCRHA after the contracts move. “That’s what the broad stakeholdering is designed to do” over the coming year, Zahilay said. Kinnison’s future at the agency is also up in the air, and she stood at the back of the room, rather than front and center, as Zahilay and Wilson answered questions. In a joint statement after the announcement, King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski and Seattle City Councilmember Maritza Rivera—who both proposed dissolving the agency earlier this year—celebrated the news. “While this is not a complete dissolution of the Regional Homelessness Authority that we may have called for, it is a major step in the right direction,” they said. “This is a much-needed reset of how we manage our homelessness response.”

 

City Council, homelessness, King County, Mayor Wilson, Police

This Week on PubliCola: June 27, 2026

Discouraging homelessness numbers, SPD hiring debate, King County budget shenanigans, and much more.

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, June 22

Allegation: Civil Rights Office Director, Staff Went to Strip Club During City-Sponsored Civil Rights Trip

A recently concluded investigation into Seattle Office for Civil Rights director Derrick Wheeler-Smith, which found Wheeler-Smith subjected a subordinate to “unwelcome conduct of a sexually explicit nature,” details allegations that Wheeler-Smith and several other men went to a strip club in Alabama during an official City of Seattle-sponsored trip to civil rights history sites in the South, PubliCola exclusively reported.

Tuesday, June 23

Report: Homelessness in King County Continues to Grow, with 21 Percent Increase in Unsheltered Homelessness Since 2024

The latest biennial count of the region’s homeless population, which has been based since 2022 on interviews and statistical sampling rather than a physical count, found that homelessness overall increased 9 percent—a data point the King County Regional Homelessness Authority characterized as good news because it represents a slowed pace of increase—but that unsheltered homelessness increased 21 percent, largely because of the closure of some family shelters.

Wednesday, June 24

County’s Midyear Budget Sparks Controversy Over Harm Reduction, Human Service Contracts, and Lobbyists

Three King County budget-related items in this Morning Fizz:

• First, County Councilmember Rod Dembowski’s proposal to defund a successful harm reduction program that connects drug users to services by offering safer smoking supplies will not move forward. After PubliCola broke the story last week, Dembowski replaced the proposal with a request for information on the program.

• Second, Dembowski’s proposal to add more process to every grant or contract issued through the county’s Best Starts for Kids program—subject of a recent high-profile audit—got scaled back to a level the county’s Department of Community and Human Services said it can live with. New grants and contracts will still require a letter to the county council making a number of financial and other guarantees about each program.

• Finally, a majority of the county council voted to retain the county’s longtime federal lobbyist for another year after County Executive Girmay Zahilay put out a request for proposals and hired a new lobbyist. Councilmembers accused Zahilay of taking unilateral action, which his office says isn’t true; in fact, they say, a council representative has been present at every step of the hiring process. The council decision to hire two separate lobbyists will cost the county about $200,000 a year.

Thursday, June 25

Mayor Hires Temporary New Comms Team; Councilmembers Tell SPD: Keep Hiring, We’ll Pay for It!

Thursday’s Fizz featured an exclusive about Mayor Katie Wilson’s decision to hire political consultant, podcaster, and KVRU Radio co-owner Crystal Nicole Fincher as well as longtime SDOT spokesperson Dawn Schellenberg to help craft a new communications strategy and fill in while the mayor finds a permanent new communications director, respectively.

And several members of the city council, including Rob Saka and Bob Kettle, rejected the idea of slowing down Seattle Police Department hiring, as suggested by SPD budget staff, in order to above going above budget this year and in next year’s budget. Saka suggested that slowing the pace of hiring would be tantamount to defunding the police.

Friday, June 26 How Do We Get Transit Champions on Transit Boards?

In a fascinating guest editorial, nondriver movement leader Anna Zivarts explores what it would take to get actual transit riders on the Sound Transit board, looking at how other cities have tackled the problem of transit agencies whose decision makers don’t represent or understand the challenges faced by people who rely on transit every day.

Also this week: Check out the latest episode of Seattle Nice, where we discussed the dramatic increase in unsheltered homelessness and the latest plan to address drug use and criminal activity around 12th and Jackson.

 

Drugs, human services, King County, Uncategorized

County’s Midyear Budget Sparks Controversy Over Harm Reduction, Human Service Contracts, and Lobbyists

1. After PubliCola reported on a King County Council supplemental budget amendment that would have prohibited spending county funds on safer smoking supplies for drug users, the proposal’s sponsor, Councilmember Rod Dembowski, decided to withdraw the amendment and replace it with one that simply requests more information on the program. It was a significant victory for harm reduction proponents, who pointed to data showing that the program provided access to services, including treatment, to tens of thousands of drug users last year.

The supplemental budget, usually a low-key affair, sparked a number of controversies  this time around.

During a work session before this week’s county council meeting, Dembowski said that in response to “feedback,” his amendment would “modify that language away from a strict cutoff to asking for some more information about the program. You know, how many supplies are being distributed? What is the cost? Who are they going to? What studies are out there? What assessments are out there? Give us some more information, and come back in a few months to let us know about the program.”

As we reported last week, the county spends a small amount—about $14,000 so far this year—on safe smoking supplies, plus some staff time for county employees who distribute pipes and foil at the county’s syringe exchange and to nonprofit groups that run their own syringe exchange programs.

Those programs had fallen largely into disuse as most drug users switched from injecting to smoking; the result was a sharp reduction in the number of people who accessed other county services that are a primary function of the program, such as case management, basic health care and STI testing, and referrals to treatment. Opponents of harm reduction have caricatured and demonized safer smoking programs in the Trump era, claiming that they “enable” drug users and encourage drug use.

2. The supplemental budget, adopted yesterday, also included a modified version of an amendment Dembowski proposed earlier this month that will add another layer of process to every new Best Starts for Kids contract. (Best Starts has been under fire for months after an audit and followup investigation found potential misuse of funds, and possible outright fraud, by some “high-risk” organizations that received contracts during and after the pandemic.)

The amendment adopted Tuesday will require the county’s Department of Community and Human Services to send a “notification letter” to the county council certifying that every new contractor has met a series of requirements— guaranteeing, for instance, that each individual contractor has sound financial systems and “qualified personnel” to administer the contract. Previously, the amendment would have also required such a letter for every contract amendment, which opponents said would have turned routine changes into lengthy administrative nightmares.

The amendment, like Dembowski’s original proposal, also requires contractors to attest that neither they, nor any person in a position to administer contracts, has ever lost a county contract because of misconduct or misuse of funds. But it provides a new out that wasn’t included in the original proposal: If the contractor has taken “all reasonable steps” to recover misused funds and can show that “adequate corrective action has been implemented,” the county can still contract with them.

Dembowski characterized every element of the amendment as “not unusual” or something that “shouldn’t be a challenge.” But critics of his amendment argued in public comment that it still creates more process without providing meaningful oversight, since the council is made up of elected officials, not contracting or financial experts.

Dembowski’s amendment doesn’t include a minimum contract size or explain how small organizations that may be new to government contracting are supposed to prove they already have financial controls and systems in place that will meet the new requirements.

3. Also Tuesday, the county council voted to retain the county’s current federal lobbying firm, Washington2 Advocates, for at least a year while also paying a new lobbying firm, Manatt, Phelps, & Phillips. The contract with Washington2 will be with the legislative branch, while the contract with Manatt will be with the county executive.

Tensions flared over the contract decision after King County Executive Girmay Zahilay hired Manatt through a request for proposals process without telling the council what they were doing, effectively canceling out a one-year option to retain Washington2 Advocates, run by longtime county lobbyist (and personal friend of some councilmembers) Jeff Bjornstad.

During Dow Constantine’s time as executive, the council and executive jointly approved the lobbying contract. So it was a surprise to some on the council when they learned that Zahilay had run a new bidding process and picked a new contractor. (After we published this post, the executive’s office reached out to let us know that the council’s government relations staff was aware of the RFP. “We communicated to all Councilmembers our desire to coordinate with them on this RFP before it went live in April,” the spokesperson said.)

“The renewal came up sort of abruptly—we weren’t notified until there was already an RFP put out by the executive branch to search for another contractor,” Councilmember Claudia Balducci told PubliCola Tuesday. “For a very long time, we hired a lobbyist and worked together across the branches very closely … so this was a little jarring.” It “didn’t help,” Balducci continued, that Zahilay “deleted the council from the RFP” itself, effectively cutting them out of the lobbying contract altogether. “We were told that wasn’t the intent, but this all happened very quickly.”

Zahilay’s office disputes this, saying the council is still “a receiver of the consultant’s services” and saying the contract has always been just with the executive branch.

Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda told PubliCola that the fact that Bjornstad didn’t apply in the executive’s competitive process was “a sign that he wasn’t interested in competing.” Mosqueda argued that the executive had the right to issue a lobbying contract, arguing at a Monday council pre-briefing that the decision “should not be about individual relationships that people have had with a contractor over X number of years. …  This is about how the county can best be represented in these immense times.”

Doubling up on lobbyists for a year will cost the county about $200,000.

Asked about the dustup with the council, a spokesperson for Zahilay said, “we are rebidding and refreshing all federal and state lobbyist contracts. As a new administration, we believe this is good practice.”